Google acquires travel software company for $700 million

The Justice Department has given Google the green light to purchase ITA Software, a Cambridge, Mass-based company that organizes airline data and controls the reservation systems of most major US airlines and online fare-comparison sites such as Kayak, TripAdvisor, and Hotwire. Google announced their intentions to acquire the company last July.

Antitrust regulators reviewed the deal, and approved the $700 million acquisition provided that Google comply with certain conditions. Google will be required to license the software to other companies, and cannot access any proprietary data or technology that exist in the ITA system. Google has stated that they will honor ITA's existing contracts and extend them into 2016.

This acquisition may very well revolutionize the way we search for airfares. If all goes according to plan, type "flights to somewhere sunny for under $500 in May" and your search results will give you exact flight times, prices, and quick links to airlines and travel websites where you can buy a ticket. Although ITA does not sell tickets and this is unlikely to change under Google's direction, other online fare-comparison sites—such as Kayak, HipMunk and Bing—may be hurt by the merger.

What do you think? Is this good for travelers? What would you like to see in a travel search engine or fare comparision site?

This is a search menu. By typing in the search input you can query all of the articles available on the site and get instant and relevant results from the first keystroke. You can close the search menu by hitting the esc key once if the search input is empty. If you have made a search query hitting the esc key will clear the search input and search results. You can naviate the search the menu by hitting the tab key. Once you reach the last search result you will be naviated back to the clear button where you can clear the results make a new search query. If you reach the last suggested entry you will be navigated to the close button. To get back to the search input you have to hit shift + tab from either the clear or close button.

This is a button that clears the search input field and clears the search results by hitting the enter key. It is only available if a search query is made. You can get it to by forward tabbing from seach input or reverse tabbing from either the close button.

This is a button to close the search menu by hitting enter. You can navigate to it by tabbing forward from the search input.

This is a modal. You can exit by navigating to the close button and hitting enter, or hitting the esc key on your keyboard.